The Only Daughter: A Novel
By A.B. Yehoshua and Stuart Schoffman
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
“An old-fashioned book, free of cynicism, encroaching technology and intricate plotting, but imbued with a heartfelt and optimistic view of humanity—in other words, a book filled with feeling and moral values.”—New York Times Book Review
From the internationally acclaimed, award-winning Israeli author, a stunning novel that brilliantly illuminates a young girl’s crisis of faith and coming-of-age in Italy.
Rachele Luzzato is twelve years old when she learns that her father is gravely ill. While her family plans for her upcoming bat mitzvah, Rachele finds herself cast as the Madonna in her school’s Christmas play. Caught between spiritual poles, struggling to cope with her father’s mortality, Rachele feels as if the threads of her everyday life are unraveling.
A diverse circle of adults is there to guide Rachele as she faces the difficult passing of childhood, including her charismatic Jewish grandfather, her maternal Catholic grandparents, and even an old teacher who believes the young girl might find solace in a nineteenth-century novel. These spiritual tributaries ultimately converge in Rachele’s imagination, creating a fantasy that transcends the microcosm of her daily life with one simple hope: an end to the loneliness felt by an only daughter.
In this wondrous story A. B. Yehoshua paints a warm and subtle portrait of a young girl at the cusp of her journey into adulthood.
A.B. Yehoshua
A. B. Yehoshua (1936-2022) was born in Jerusalem to a Sephardi family. Drawing comparisons to William Faulkner and described by Saul Bellow as “one of Israel's world-class writers,” Yehoshua, an ardent humanist and titan of storytelling, distinguished himself from contemporaries with his diverse exploration of Israeli identity. His work, which has been translated into twenty-eight languages, includes two National Jewish Book Award winners (Five Seasons and Mr. Mani) and has received countless honors worldwide, including the International Booker Prize shortlist and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (Woman in Jerusalem).
Read more from A.B. Yehoshua
Mr. Mani: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tunnel: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Woman in Jerusalem: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Lover: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Five Seasons: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Journey to the End of the Millennium: A Novel of the Middle Ages Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Extra: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Late Divorce: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Friendly Fire: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Liberated Bride: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Retrospective: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Continuing Silence of a Poet: The Collected Stories of A.B. Yehoshua Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Open Heart Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Only Daughter
Related ebooks
City of a Thousand Gates: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love Letters of Great Men: Annotated Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThis is Life; "Haik al-Haya": Five Years Teaching in Palestine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sign for Drowning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Milk of Birds Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gravity Is the Thing: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mother: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Culinary Triumphs Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLittle Bird Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLetters to Home: A Memoir (& Other Stories by an ABC) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSocial Engagement: A Novel Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Important Things That Don't Matter: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Printed in Beirut Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Girl from Cairo: A Memoir Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsI Laugh Me Broken Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLife Is Everywhere: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Lament of the Dhobi Woman Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Country You Can Leave: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Your Body Was Made For This Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNo Place to Call Home: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Everybody Knows This is Nowhere Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Vindication of Love: Reclaiming Romance for the Twenty-First Century Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Shrug: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mr. and Mrs. Doctor Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5God Said It’S Time for Closure: A Journey Through a Little Girl’S Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Three Button Trick and Other Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5WOMEN & ECONOMICS Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat Are You Doing Here?: My Autobiography Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Longevity Book: The Science of Aging, the Biology of Strength, and the Privilege of Time Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Knocked Up Abroad Again: Knocked Up Abroad, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Jewish Fiction For You
The Book Thief: A Novel by Markus Zusak | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Weight Of Ink Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Painted Bird Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Chosen Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Wolf and the Woodsman: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5City of Laughter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Disobedience: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Three Sisters: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Auschwitz Lullaby: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Once We Were Brothers: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Postcard Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Light After the War: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Orphans of War: Orphans of War, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAddress Unknown: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Marriage of Opposites Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Boston Girl: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pomegranate Gate Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShmutz: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Safekeeping: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ben-Hur: The Novel That Inspired the Epic Movie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Oppermanns Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Goyhood: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ecstasy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Girl from Berlin: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Her First American: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5They Bled Orange: Orphans of War, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Masada Protocol Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Harem Midwife: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Botanist's Tracks: Beyond the Tracks, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sisters Weiss: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Only Daughter
9 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Only Daughter - A.B. Yehoshua
Dedication
For Sara
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
About the Author
About the Translator
Copyright
About the Publisher
1
The teacher doesn’t hear the knock on the door. The students, captivated by the story, ignore it. This is the last lesson before the Christmas holiday, and the last of the autumn leaves flutter past the big windows. The students in the upper grades, reluctant to part from one another, congregate in the schoolyard, alongside parents who have come to pick up younger pupils. But for the teacher Emilia Gironi this is the final lesson before retirement. She won’t dismiss class before further immersing the youngsters in the humanistic precepts of Edmondo De Amicis.
Only Andrea, intrigued by the boy who cares in the hospital for a dying stranger instead of going home with his recovering father, hears the knocking and cuts the story short: Teacher Emilia, he says, someone’s at the door. With her copy of Cuore open in her hand, she walks to the door. Cicillo! She greets a graduating senior who has stepped in straight from the pages of the story to inform the teacher that the student Rachele Luzzatto should come to the principal’s office with her bookbag and coat.
In the middle of the classroom a tall, pretty, curly-headed girl stands up, as if expecting urgent news. She stuffs her books and notebooks in her bag, and quietly makes her way to her coat. But the teacher, finding it hard to part from a beloved student, ties a silk ribbon around her thin wrist. Ask your father, she says, to get you a copy of Cuore, and finish reading this story on your own, and maybe other stories as well. But we read all of Heart in elementary school, grumbles Rachele, why read it again? Because you might forget, says the teacher, so you have to read and remember, and in the new year come tell me what you felt and what you thought, and if you were sad and even cried, whom did you cry over? The stranger who is ill? Or Cicillo, who refused to leave his bedside?
But how can I tell you? You won’t be here anymore, you will no longer teach us. That’s true, smiles the teacher, not here, not at school, but at my home. Here, this silk ribbon will remind you of me. She carefully lays a hand on her curly head, and sends the girl and the boy into the dark corridor dappled by light seeping from empty classrooms.
You don’t have to show me, I know the way. But the messenger isn’t ready to let go of the radiant beauty. The principal sent him to get her, and that’s what he will do. Rachele studies the fair-haired boy, three years her senior. Is he really called Cicillo? No way, he laughs. Then why didn’t you correct her? Because I know this teacher, I was her student, and I remember that she loves to nickname her students after characters in the stories she’s teaching. Then what’s your real name? Enrico. Enrico? smiles Rachele, that’s the protagonist of the entire book of stories Cuore. Maybe, I don’t remember, but even if that’s his name, so what? I’m Enrico too, and I’ll stay that way. We’re here.
The principal is not in her office, and the devoted messenger is happy to lead Rachele to the Teachers’ Room, where faculty and staff have gathered around a huge panettone cake, crowned by a cupola studded with raisins, bits of dried fruit, and sugared citrus peel, to celebrate the coming New Year. So as not to lose the girl in the crowd, Enrico holds her delicate hand and clears a path to the principal. Here’s the student you asked me to bring to you, and if need be I can also take her to the rehearsal.
But Rachele will not take part in the play, and won’t even sing in the choir, because her father will not allow it. Her father? Enrico is surprised. Why? The principal ignores his question, takes the girl into her office, and tells her that her grandfather’s secretary called to say that Rachele should not go home but to his office, because her father and mother are delayed at the hospital in Venice.
Does the girl know the way to the office, or does she need an escort? No, she knows the way, and doesn’t need an escort. Be that as it may, where’s your grandfather’s office? Not far from the big cathedral. But this is not enough for the principal, who asks for the name of the street. Rachele doesn’t remember the name of the street but has walked there countless times. Nevertheless, the principal is wary of sending a young girl alone to the center of town, and asks for details of the route, which Rachele sketches in the air. Her right hand represents the cathedral, with three fingers raised to signify its three towers. Her left hand strolls down an alley past a pastry shop and bookstore, arriving at a square. Her grandfather’s office is on a street off the piazza. There’s a blue gate, which isn’t the one, and likewise a gray gate, but there’s a third gate, which the girl’s graceful fingers push open. In an interior courtyard, tucked behind a statue of a mournful-looking woman, is a tiny elevator that Rachele is forbidden to enter alone, so she takes the stairs to the third-floor office that is not only her grandfather’s but her father’s as well.
The principal is duly impressed by Rachele’s charming sketch, but urges her nonetheless to call home and ask the cook to come and accompany her.
The cook?
The woman who cooks your meals and sometimes comes here to pick you up.
The one who sometimes comes isn’t the cook, it’s Tersilla, the housekeeper.
So let’s call Tersilla.
But Tersilla’s not there, my father let her go yesterday to spend the holiday with her children and grandchildren.
In that case, let’s call the cook. What’s her name?
Martina. But Papà sent her off too, to take the dog to the village, because at our hotel in the Dolomites, where we’ll go skiing over Christmas, they won’t let us bring the dog, she’s a hunting dog and a bit wild.
You keep a wild hunting dog at home?
Yes, and she’s got a younger brother in the village.
The girl’s big eyes are damp with tears as the principal listens to her, bewildered. She has no choice but to send her on her way. The sky has darkened. Do you have an umbrella or at least a hat? Rachele hates umbrellas, and didn’t take her hat because Papà promised her it wouldn’t rain today. The principal goes to the metal file cabinet containing student records and takes out a large, faded khaki beret, shakes off the dust and places it on Rachele’s head. At least this way your curls won’t get wet if your father doesn’t stop the rain. Then she lifts the girl’s backpack to be sure it isn’t too heavy, and they say goodbye.
By now most of the teachers have dispersed, except for the music and drama teacher, who waits for Emilia Gironi to dismiss the students participating in the play. Enrico, picking at the remains of the cake, wants to know why Rachele’s father won’t let her be in the play. Because Rachele, the principal explains, is not Catholic like us, so her father doesn’t want her to perform in a church.
But it’s not praying, it’s only a play.
That’s right, a play, and we’ve explained this to him, but Signor Luzzatto was not convinced. ‘You already destroyed enough of us Jews, so don’t try to steal one of the few left over.’
We destroyed them?
Enrico is shocked. Why us?
He meant the World War,
explains the principal, regretting that she hadn’t asked him to escort Rachele.
But it wasn’t us, it was the Germans,
says the young man.
We tried to explain that too,
interjects the music teacher, but he insisted that the Italians helped the Germans hunt down the Jews.
And we must admit he’s partly right,
says the principal. Our Fascists helped the Germans.
What do you mean?
persists the messenger, smitten by the girl who had walked so gently beside him. Her father’s not Italian like us?
Like us, but also a little different.
How so? What does he do?
Nothing special. He’s a lawyer like his father, and often appears in court. All in all, it’s a well-to-do family.
The principal turns to the teachers with a smile. Can you imagine? This Jew keeps several women servants at home, not to mention a hunting dog.
A hunting dog?
smirks the music teacher. To hunt whom?
And I wanted,
interrupts the drama teacher, who had been a nun in her youth but renounced her vows, I wanted our Rachele to play the part of the Mother of God, and stand beside the altar with her infant child. The Messiah wasn’t born here in Italy, but in the Holy Land. It’s as if her curls, and olive skin, have been sent to us from there.
As Rachele exits the schoolyard gate, she is quick to remove the beret, but a constant drizzle compels her to put it back on. Yes, indeed—she recalls with a smile what the principal said—Papà can’t stop the rain today, or maybe in watery Venice a drizzle doesn’t count as rain. She’s curious to know how she looks in this weird beret, but if she goes back inside, to check the mirror by the Teachers’ Room, the principal might have second thoughts and insist she be escorted. She hopes to find another mirror elsewhere, and before turning onto Garibaldi Street she heads for the municipal cemetery where her mother’s grandmother is buried, having died unaware that her granddaughter would turn out to be Jewish. With a bowed head and serious demeanor she joins a group of mourners marching solemnly among rows of crosses to a small chapel. She slips away to the ladies’ room, in hopes of finding in a Christian cemetery a mirror that enables a living person to look at herself.
The curls are tucked under the weird beret, but her face is sweetly mischievous. Sure, she could wear it all the way to Grandpa. She returns to Garibaldi Street and enters a pastry shop with a Christmas tree in its window. The saleswoman, who knows Rachele by name, slices her a piece of holiday cake—a smaller sibling of the panettone from the Teachers’ Room. After the golden slice is adorned, at Rachele’s request, with a wreath of mascarpone, she retreats to a counter in the corner and relieves her anxiety with a pastry. Out the window she can see the towers of the cathedral in the distance, the beacon that will guide her to Grandpa. And as she winks at the mischievous reflection in the windowpane, she hears the voice of the teacher Emilia Gironi, who has come to the pasticceria, on this last day of her career, to compensate for her colleagues’ failure to leave her even a crumb of the holiday cake in the Teachers’ Room.
The student quickly ducks so the teacher won’t notice her. She has neither the strength nor the